Football is for the bots now.
A Friday newsletter that refuses to lose its mind over Tate McRae's NBC Olympics ad.
Dear agency readers, Super Bowl ad hype men and appreciators of vintage beer ads.
On Wednesday I thought we found our favourite Super Bowl Spot in the Xfinity Jurassic Park throwback ad. It was the shrimp mound. But then Anthropic declared war on ChatGPT in Super Bowl ads and everything changed. I’m not just talking about Guy Fieri’s absolute banger of a Super Bowl spot either.
The four new spots show people getting helpful AI advice that derails into random product pitches mid-sentence. The ads, made by Mother and directed by Jeff Low, also ask the uncomfortable question: Do we need ads everywhere?
People started showing screenshots of Apple’s 1984 ad and the Mac vs. PC ads. I’m not so sure I’d go so far as to say this, “The entire world is about to be anti open-ai and pro anthropic. It pays to be a rebel against the empire.” But it feels like the vibe.
Sam Altman responded with a strongly worded ten-paragraph response (that’ll show them) or what others simply described as corporate word salad. “But I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we won’t do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that.”
He ends by basically saying Anthropic is ‘authoritarian.’ Over a Super Bowl ad. Sam, you got cooked. Get your agency on helping you out.
Benjamin De Kraker kind of nailed it with, “I’m not reading all this If you need a giant wordsalad after your competition hits you with a humorous ad, they outmaneuvered you.”
Today, I also think we now have our least favourite Super Bowl Spot in the Svedka Vodka Shake Your Bots Off ad.
So the brand bought the first vodka Super Bowl ad in 30 years. They also made it the first Super Bowl ad predominantly made with AI.
This is the kind of spot that you will refuse to drink Svedka forever. As one comment online noted, “Alcohol drinking’s at a 90 year low and this is what you wanna roll with to get people back?”
Why do AI when you can drop the most incredible wave runner of all time like in the Ritz Super Bowl spot.
The Big Game Hydration Shot
Because the NFL will sue us for calling it the other thing.
First, pick your side:
Seahawks: green Gatorade (Fierce Green Apple)
Patriots: blue Gatorade (Cool Blue)
Next, make your shots.
1 oz vodka
1/2 oz Gatorade
squeeze of fresh lime
pinch of salt - you know for the science
Shake with ice and pour in shot glasses, preferably your collection of Hard Rock ones.
Shoot it like you are hydrating. You are not.
Tastes like halftime. Cures nothing. Probably makes you scared of AI like Chris Hemsworth - I honestly didn’t know we were still doing Alexa.
Meanwhile Google is trying very hard to turn AI into thier Sophie style ad. Ask Gemini just doesn’t have the same kind of faux magic.
1. Super Bowl: Pringles
Pringles’ Super Bowl spot is simultaneously extremely calculated and genuinely unhinged, which is kind of the sweet spot for Big Game commercials.
They looked at Sabrina Carpenter’s whole brand — the “Manchild” lyrics about liking incompetent men, her retro-flirty aesthetic, her Gen Z irony-poisoned fanbase, and said “what if her ideal boyfriend was a literal stack of chips and then everyone ate him.”
Kind a dark actually. It’s less “celebrity endorsement” and more “we built an ad out of the Sabrina Carpenter Extended Universe.” They brought in Vania Heymann and Gal Muggia, the directing duo behind her “Manchild” music video, and shot the whole thing on film (a first for Pringles) just to match her visual language - another nice AI-slop hedge.
Is it a half-joke? Absolutely. And you guessed it. The “Pringleleo” was shot practically - the brand has gone out of their way to share the story of it being multiple actual Pringle men (with a core) and they didn’t use AI or CGI.
2. Super Bowl: Soft Fans
King’s Hawaiian and Eli Manning made a whole merch for people who are only at your Super Bowl party for the food. The “Soft Fans Collection” includes a crewneck that says “Here For The Food” and a long-sleeve styled like a quarterback’s play sheet, except the plays are just phrases like “Gotta win the line of scrimmage” so you can fake your way through conversation.
Honestly? Respect. Know your audience.
3. Super Bowl: Uber Eats
Meanwhile, Uber Eats spent big on McConaughey and Cooper, then built a feature that lets you swap them out entirely. Kind of says everything about where Super Bowl ads are right now
The hilarious thing is that you can make your own Super Bowl Ad.
4. Super Bowl: Square Space
As someone who has bought and used hundreds of URLs over the years, this has never once happened to me. I mean they really are all in on these domain names. Emma Stone has another spot here. And her new website. So after all this, she doesn’t really have her own website does she?
I think the most incredible thing is these ad posters.
5. Can you ever go wrong with a perfectly timed jingle
10/10.
6. Best To Come Out of the Olympics
It’s very much coded like the Quartr App creative direction which is still dropping bangers. It’s just a one-off it seems, but they should have done a series. Update: They have. Two more just dropped.
See you Wednesday and Happy Super Bowl Ad Day. Guy Fieri’s Dog wishes you a most excellent Flavortown day. Time to do the Super Bowl Shuffle.
Jackson.
The Drink Cart Friday Shot is your late Friday pick-me-up for pop culture brains and ad junkies. A fast pour of ad insights and hot takes, served like a quick round at your favourite dive bar after a week of client feedback.